


we write letters

by homosexualitie



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homosexualitie/pseuds/homosexualitie
Summary: Does anyone else remember that Peg and Hawkeye canonically write letters to each other? This is just exploring that fact. Living in that space.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Peg Hunnicutt/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 66





	we write letters

**Author's Note:**

> definitely not my best work but whatever! people get away with posting the worst fanfiction ever on here + they still get likes!

Peg Hunnicutt is not a fool. She could tell you this even before her husband left for the war, but especially now, looking after herself and her daughter all by herself, she  _ knows _ it. She gets letters and calls filled with BJ’s advice, but he isn’t there in person to watch her every move, or to stop her from putting a foot out of line.

She does, that’s for sure. She wears pants as often as dresses these days, and gets her real estate license squared away so she can take care of her family. Not that BJ isn’t capable, but she’s capable too. They can be capable together. 

And they  _ are _ capable together, both leaning on each other whenever they need. Except when they’re not together, which is all the time these days. Capable  _ apart _ , then. 

She curls her hair in the morning and brushes it out at night. She nurses Erin and takes her to the market in her stroller. She lives a life, beautifully and capably, and she misses BJ with all her heart. 

He misses her too, judging from his letters, missives full of stories and news and reassurances of his love. 

There’s someone in almost every letter, in the starring role in all his stories,  _ Hawkeye Pierce _ , this man that her husband sees every day and seems to have taken a liking to. 

He sounds wonderful, from what she’s heard about him, and if he’s keeping her husband sane, she’s glad for him. She asks after him in her next letter, at the end, adding  _ how’s your Hawkeye Pierce? Tell him Peg says hello _ . 

It’s only after she sends it that she realizes her slip up—  _ his _ Hawkeye Pierce. As if he belongs to BJ. Thinking about it makes her feel strange. She thinks long and hard about it, and decides that as long as this Hawkeye pierce takes good care of  _ her _ BJ, she’s quite alright with this arrangement. As long as BJ remains  _ hers _ and she remains  _ his _ . 

Erin grows up, she starts talking— her first word is  _ mama _ , and Peg cries and writes BJ as soon as she gets a chance. 

The war, she starts to realize, is her opportunity to grow up. She assumes BJ is doing the same, across the wide and empty sea, and so she starts to look after herself, the way she knows most women don’t— she cleans out the gutters herself, damn the handyman, and she starts making her own money in real estate. She’s a real adult now, she tells herself, and she’ll continue to be a real adult even when BJ comes back to shoulder some of the burden. 

When she takes the job at the cafe she feels so proud she could cry, even though there’s a part of it that makes her long for the days when BJ was there to take care of them both. There’s a part of her that  _ likes _ being taken care of. Of course, there’s another part, maybe a larger part, that likes the work, likes having her own money and her own little corner of the world, separate from BJ’s influence. He has his war, and she has the cafe. 

BJ’s Hawkeye pierce begins to take shape in her mind, when he writes her a letter and asks for help organizing something for their anniversary. He’s surprisingly kind, and there’s a fierce affection in the way he writes about BJ. She writes back with as much affection as she can, almost like she’s trying to one-up him. 

She tries very hard not to think about it when she records the tape for BJ, thinks only of the life she had with him before the war, and the life they’ll have after it. 

The life she has during the war gets a little larger when she meets Grace Smith, one of her regular customers at the cafe. She’s not married, and she gets more than a few looks from the men that sit at the counter. But she seems to have taken a shine to Peg, and they’re soon fast friends. 

She has Grace over for lunch and gossip, and Erin just  _ loves _ her, which is as good of an endorsement as Peg will ever get. Grace is the most wonderful woman. She likes to wear pants  _ all _ the time, and she doesn’t want to get married. Peg learns to see that as something to admire, not to gawk at. 

She doesn’t write to BJ about Grace for a while, at least not until she comes up organically. But BJ seems interested enough, and doesn’t mind her having unmarried friends who wear pants. 

He writes her something about Hawkeye pierce, some story of a prank against their roommate, and she loves the story so much she writes this Hawkeye Pierce herself, tells him that she’s glad that  _ someone _ is looking out for BJ out there, and she hopes both Hawkeye and BJ are well.

She doesn’t really expect a reply, but she gets one, something short but sweet, telling her about how glad BJ was that she was writing Hawkeye. He sends her a tiny picture of BJ, grinning widely. 

There isn’t anything possessive about the letter, not really. It’s just a normal letter, from one mutual friend to another. But she thinks, briefly, as she reads it, that she’s lost BJ somehow. That he belongs to someone else. 

The picture of BJ is strange too, and it makes her heart hurt to look at it. There’s something about the way that he’s smiling that makes Peg ache. He’s never smiled like that for her, it looks so tender, so joyful. 

She doesn’t write Hawkeye Pierce back for a while, but writes as much as she can to BJ. Tells him about Erin and the dog and Grace, too, how Grace has been so helpful by babysitting and helping Peg look for a better job. And she keeps telling BJ, so he doesn’t forget, how much she loves him. 

There are faces that show up again and again in BJ’s letters, Colonel Potter, his firm and wise leader, Father Mulcahy, the energetic and hopeful priest, Charles Emerson Winchester the third (she affects a silly accent when she reads that name, figures no one from Mill Valley would ever go by that kind of name), and Margaret Houllihan. 

Margaret is— well, Peg isn’t quite sure. She’s the head nurse, and she seems to be very good at her job, if a bit uptight. From what Peg can tell, she’s quite good friends with BJ. When Peg asks after her, BJ doesn’t shy away from it, says that they’re quite good friends but nothing else. She wonders what kind of answer she’d get if she asked about Hawkeye Pierce. 

She doesn’t ask what Hawkeye Pierce means to her husband, mostly because she doesn’t think she wants to hear the answer. There’s a part of her that wants to laugh, that her husband spends most of his days with a beautiful nurse and she’s worried about his best friend, but it isn’t funny. 

But Hawkeye is in almost every one of the letters, and he writes her again, sending greetings and well wishes, telling her a story about how BJ saved a soldier’s life. It makes her cry, and she replies to Hawkeye, tells him her own stories, about the walks she goes on with Erin, and how she only gets a free minute when two pairs of grandparents agree to watch the baby. She doesn’t mind complaining to this man, not in the way she does to BJ— after all, Hawkeye isn’t her husband. She doesn’t have to make excuses or hide how tired she gets, working at the cafe and looking after the house and Erin. 

Grace comes in for tea one afternoon and sees Peg reading one of Hawkeye’s letters— some news— a miraculous recovery from one of BJ’s patients, and the latest prank Hawkeye and BJ pulled against Margaret. 

Grace nods to the letter. “Is that your husband writing?” she asks. 

Peg shakes her head. “His friend,” she replies. Grace makes a face. 

“Friend?” she asks. There’s no accusation, but there’s an implication in it that makes Peg feel strange. Like Grace is saying something dirty about her husband. Like she’s implying BJ would ever be unfaithful to her. 

Peg blinks. “Yes,” she says stiffly. 

Grace smiles. “Alright then,” she says, and turns to Erin, sitting in her high chair still. “And how’s my little friend?”

Erin babbles excitedly. Peg smiles. Erin really likes Grace, almost as much as Peg does. She puts the letter out of her mind and resolves to have a good afternoon with Grace. 

She returns to the letter later, when Erin is asleep and Grace has left. It’s still the same style of innocuous, no obscene implications, just a nice story about her husband. She still feels hurt by it, almost betrayed. Not by BJ, but by Hawkeye Pierce, who came into her life by way of her husband and filled her mind with irrational jealousy and a conflicted anger. 

Peg realizes that, somewhere between Mill Valley and Korea, she’s lost her hold on her husband. She doesn’t know what he’s feeling, she doesn’t know what he wants from her. 

She doesn’t know how to write Hawkeye Pierce back either, which is her more pressing concern. She wants to call Grace and ask, but that would mean admitting her suspicions, voicing something about her husband that is best kept behind closed doors and never spoken about.

in the end, she ends up writing him something nice, tells him about the fall leaves (sends him a picture too) and slips in an anecdote about Erin breaking plates in the kitchen. She doesn’t broach the subject, but she’s terrified that Hawkeye will somehow see through her, will see her suspicions laid out in every word. 

She sends the letter anyway. The reply comes back later in the month, when Grace is over playing with Erin, and she opens it eagerly. 

“Another one from BJ?” Grace asks. 

“No, his friend Hawkeye,” Peg says, and flinches. But Grace doesn’t react, just turns back to Erin and keeps playing with her. 

The letter is short but sweet, and Hawkeye asks her to say hi to Erin for him, tells Peg that BJ misses her like hell, that BJ thinks about her all the time. Again, Peg feels unsteady reading this letter. The secondhand way Hawkeye tells her about her own husband is disorienting, like she’s hearing about someone else’s husband.

Grace looks up. “Are you alright?” she asks, and gets up to put her hand on Peg’s shoulder. 

Peg meets her eyes. “Can I confide in you?” she asks cautiously.

“Of course.”

Peg bites her lip. “I think that Hawkeye is in love with my husband. And I think that my husband is—” She can’t bring herself to say it. 

Grace wraps her arms around Peg. “Oh dear,” she says, “I’m so sorry.”

Peg pulls back. The realization, just being able to speak it out loud to another person, has dulled the shock, and she doesn’t feel as sick anymore. 

“I’m not angry,” she says, surprised to realize it. Grace furrows her brow.

“Why not?”

Peg shakes her head. She’s still a little unsure of herself, a little confused by her own feelings, but she thinks she understands now. “BJ and I, we love each other very much. But we weren’t quite  _ in love _ . We were a team, but that was all it ever was. When he married me, he was settling, and when I married him, I was settling.”

Grace tilts her head. “Settling for what?”

Peg realizes how close Grace is standing to her. “For a life neither of us could truly live, a life neither of us truly wanted.”

“And what life _ do _ you want?”

Peg gestures to Grace and Erin, a difficult thing with Grace so close. “A life like this,” she says. Grace smiles.

“Me too.” she says. 

Peg sends a long letter to BJ later that night, when Erin is asleep and she’s getting ready for bed. She tells him the truth about Grace, writes it as plainly as she can without saying something explicit. She isn’t sure who will read this letter, but she knows that BJ will understand. 

She replies to Hawkeye too. She thanks him for his stories of BJ, and tells a story about Grace, who had stayed until midnight trying to bake a pie in a tipsy haze. She sends him a picture of BJ too, one from their college days. She doesn’t mind sharing BJ now, truly sharing him, with Hawkeye. 


End file.
